Discontinuity is a tool written in Java to help make non-linear
animations using the POV-Ray raytracer. The project is now looking for
developers and other team members to help transform it from its current
half-formed state into a user-friendly, powerful program.
Quite some time ago, I started working on Discontinuity to help ease the
cumbersome efforts required to hand-code a POV-Ray animation.
Unfortunately, I no longer have time to work on the project. I have,
therefore, put it up on Sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/) in the
hope that others will take up this worthwhile project.
I am a bit of a lazy programmer, so even though I tried to keep
Discontinuity's code in a readable form, considering its large size, it
was still somewhat of a mess. However, I've changed it considerably
since version 0.0, especially in the organization of the underlying
code. The current CVS version is now (somewhat) nicely organized,
contains Javadoc (although that needs to be greatly improved), and
contains Open, Save, and Export dialog boxes instead of defaulting to my
home directory (Oh no! If you look at the 0.0 code, you'll be able to
find my username!). Additionally, the generated Javadoc is available
from the project website.
However, there's still lots of work to do. Many (if not most) of
Discontinuity's professed features do not even exist. It would be quite
difficult to actually make a useful animation with the current version.
My GUI-building skills aren't so great (although I don't feel too
guilty; from my experience with most software made entirely by
programmers, most programmers can't design either), so it would be nice
if people could fix up the NetBeans-created user interface and the
website. Documentation is badly needed (though I don't know how anyone
can explain how to use a program that they themselves don't know how to
use, since I'm so bad at explaining). Perhaps most importantly, I am
moving in a couple of months and will have to leave the position of
project administrator.
So, what's in it for you? Truthfully, absolutely nothing. I have no idea
why I wrote Discontinuity, or, in fact, why any open source programmers
do what they do. Obviously, some people find it rewarding. If you are
one of those people, Discontinuity is a very worthwhile project to work
on (assuming you are into POV-Ray). As a side point (*cough* *cough*),
on the rare chance someone donates to the project, those that contribute
significantly to Discontinuity will get a share...
Please look at http://discontinuity.sourceforge.net/ and
http://discontinuity.sourceforge.net/contribute for more information.